The World is Beautiful
by The RyRy
Summary: [FF6, Sabin and Celes] In the World of Ruin, Celes and Sabin find themselves alone on the Serpent Trench searching for lost friends.


_Author's Note: This is an old one that I really liked, so I dredged it up and fixed it up a little. This is an example of my earlier writing, a completely different style with a different set of characters. First person POV, Celes. _

**The World is Beautiful**

It was cold at night now. The world had changed - everything had changed.

Sabin sat outside the tent meditating. We only had one tent, but that was alright with me. The fact was that there were two things in the world that brought me any sort of hope - one of them was the stained, dirty bandana I wore wrapped around my wrist.

The other was Sabin.

He never seemed concerned about anything. He held up that house with the child inside without even breaking a sweat, and I could have sworn that he was smiling. Still he reveled in the beauty of the world, even if the water had turned a mucky shade of brownish-gray and dirty clouds covered the stars.

As far as I was concerned, everyone was as good as dead. If I had been "asleep" for almost a year, anything could have happened. The others didn't have someone like Cid to take care of them.

Sabin said he had woken up right after the world had been destroyed, still feeling the tremors in the earth. I guess the first thing he did was escort some old lady from Albrook back to Tzen, someone who had gotten lost while trying to find her old patch of raspberries. Like those existed anymore. Nothing existed.

He had stayed in Tzen, helping to try to put the town back together. It didn't surprise me at all. But he also said that he hadn't heard a word about any of the others, even Edgar. I could tell that he was worried about his brother, but he never let it show. "He's a big boy," he had reassured me. "I'm sure wherever he is, he's taking care of himself and trying to get a woman, just as he always is. And I highly doubt he's gone back to Figaro already."

Somehow, his light-hearted view of the world was comforting. And he had been quite the gentleman during the whole experience.

Even if we had shared a tent, and a small one at that, I never felt uncomfortable around him. His unbelievably large body generated a lot of heat, which was perfectly fine with me as I huddled under the blankets in the middle of the night.

We had been on the Serpent Trench for what felt like days. We were headed for Mobliz - the town that had been, supposedly, destroyed by the Light of Judgment. Sabin wanted to help the people there the way he helped those in Tzen. I wanted to try to find Locke.

"What're you sitting there brooding about?"

I looked up. His voice was always so jovial, no matter the circumstances. "Just thinking…"

"You're always 'just thinking'," he chided. I couldn't force back the smile that pulled at my lips. "Why don't you come out? The sunset's nice, we can start a fire and cook that Wyvern we got today."

I nodded, fingering the tie of the bandana on my wrist. He offered me his hand, helping me to stand up without the least bit of effort on his part.

I followed him outside of the tent, letting my cloak wrap around my shoulders. It was chilly, but the wind wasn't blowing… yet. We both knew it would come in the night sometime.

Sabin had gathered a few stray branches, along with some miscellaneous debris. It wasn't uncommon to find boards of wood strewn about what was formerly the Serpent Trench, from ships that had been destroyed in the treacherous waters, or perhaps blown on the strong winds from the Light of Judgment's latest victim.

Sabin sat down on the ground in his familiar cross-legged position, closing his eyes. I sat just close enough to him to feel his body heat, but not close enough for him to get any ideas.

Not that Sabin ever had any ideas, really. We talked a lot now, since we were each other's only company. He shared so much he knew with me, and so much about himself too. He had revealed something about his training that his brother would have abhorred - Sabin had pronounced himself chaste, in an effort to free his mind from earthly bonds.

"Let me try tonight?" he asked, staring at the small pile of wood in front of us.

I smiled. "I let you try every night."

He smiled back at me, turning his head, letting the shadows of the sunset creep across his eyes. "Gotta practice, or we'll never be able to get Kefka, hm?"

I laughed again. It was crazy, thinking that the two of us alone could defeat Kefka in all his glory. "Go ahead, it's always worth a try."

Sabin folded his hands in front of him, closing his eyes in a shallow meditation. I had seen him fall into trances, his body completely stiff and unmoving - now, however, he was as loose as he was in normal battle.

He whispered the words so familiar to all of us - what was left of "us", anyway - extending his hands in front of him in a very precise, controlled motion. I watched the woodpile, waiting for what I knew would happen. A spark appeared inside the pile, beginning to smoke lightly. Sabin concentrated harder, and the spark grew into a flame… I waited. The past two nights, the flame had just gone out without catching. Maybe he'd have some luck.

It was just as he had hoped. The small, controlled Fire spell finally caught onto one of the thinner branches, igniting the leaves, creating our own little campfire for the night. I smiled at him as he pulled his hands back, grinning proudly. "You finally did it."

"Yeah, now if only _you_ could learn to cook," he said back, keeping that bright grin on his face.

I elbowed him, which I knew wouldn't phase him, but I did it anyway. He joked, grabbing his side, pretending to be fatally wounded. "Celes, I never thought you would do such a thing to a friend!" he wailed.

"That's what happens when you insult my cooking!"

He laughed, the deep, hearty laugh that I had grown to love. He pulled some of the remaining feathers off the Wyvern, examining it in the low light of the dying sunset. "Come on, this needs rinsed off… all the dirt and blood-"

"I still don't like the idea of rinsing things in _that_ water," I replied, warming my hands by the fire.

"It's better than eating caked-on mud, now come on, let's go to the beach."

'Beach' was a bit of an exaggeration. The thing we stood on was more like a bunch of rocks upon which the water crashed violently every few seconds. Sabin knelt on the rocks, rinsing the bird off in the gray-brown water. "Did Duncan teach you to cook?"

He looked at me. "Not really," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "I just kind of watched. It was a whole new experience for me, seeing my food prepared, so I tried to learn all I could about it."

Sabin often told me about what a culture shock he had gone through when he ran away to the mountains. Apparently his father had a friend who knew martial arts, who taught Sabin as a young child. This friend often told the young prince about the great Duncan, who lived in the mountains and trained world-class martial artists, so when Edgar gave Sabin his freedom from the throne, it was the first place he ran. I enjoyed the way Sabin told that story, recalling how he knew nothing about living outside of a castle, knew nothing about being a commoner, and suddenly was thrown into it. I could tell that the experience had changed Sabin a lot over the years.

And now, here he was, preparing food for me.

"What if we're the only ones left?" My voice almost got lost in the crashing of the surf.

Sabin stood up, having finished rinsing the mud off our meal for the night. He looked at me, straight-on, frowning slightly. "Why would you say something like that?"

"I-I don't know," I stammered. "I guess I'm just scared."

"What are you scared of?"

Now he stood next to me, looking out over the ocean. I followed his gaze, the water reflecting the broken sunset.

"That I'm going to be… all alone."

Now, his gaze shifted, falling on my eyes. "You're not alone," he finally whispered.

I nodded. "But-"

"But nothing," he replied firmly. He placed the Wyvern on a large rock beside him, laying it flat. "There are so many people in the world," he said, looking out over the ocean again. "Sweet people, like the townsfolk of Tzen."

"But…"

"Didn't I say no buts?" he replied, looking at me. I felt his hand suddenly caress my shoulder… before I knew it, his arm was wrapped around me, holding me tenderly against his shoulder. "_I'm_ here, Celes… I won't leave you."

The way he said those words, they held a solemn promise. Not the empty vows Locke made, trying to make up for mistakes he had made in the past, willing to protect anyone as long as it made _him_ feel good. Sabin's words held truth.

I felt a warmth on my forehead. I had closed my eyes, enjoying the sweet embrace, and when I opened them I realized that Sabin had planted a gentle kiss above my right eye. A kiss.

"Sabin…?"

My voice sounded so weak, so powerless.

The sun finally sank beneath the horizon, leaving faint streaks of light across the sky. Sabin turned his head to watch the last of the light leave, allowing the stars to take reign in this dying world's heavens, and he smiled. "I have a feeling we'll all have choices to make," he said softly into my ear. I fiddled nervously with the bandana on my wrist. "I hope that when you have to make yours, you'll remember mine."

He squeezed my shoulder gently, then picked up the Wyvern with his other hand, starting to walk back to the campsite. I watched him go, disappearing over the hill into the darkness, then turned to look back at the last remnants of the sunset.

Maybe the world really was more beautiful than I gave it credit for.


End file.
